Inquiry Table

Inquiry Table

All Hands-On activities are NOT inquiry. Many of the labs easily accessible are actually cook-book labs. The goal of these types of labs is to demonstrate content students have just learned. They are not addressing any sort of "question." They may be Hands-On, but they are not inquiry. I am officially changing the name of our "Hands-On Activity" to "Cookbook to Inquiry Activity." You may get ideas from cookbook labs, but you must find a way to pose a question that students work to answer.

	Demonstrations	Activity	Teacher-Initiated Inquiry	Student-Initiated Inquiry
Posing the Question	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher	Student
Planning the procedure	Teacher	Teacher	Student	Student
Formulating the Results	Teacher	Student	Student	Student

From: D. Llewellyn. 2002. Inquire within: Implementing inquiry-based science standards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. pg. 12


Word Doc version of the Inquiry Table

Changing Emphasis to Promote Inquiry

Less Emphasis On	More Emphasis On
Activities that demonstrate and verify science content	Activities that investigate and analyze science questions
Investigations confined to one class period	Investigations over extended periods of time
Process skills out of context	Process skills in context
Emphasis on individual process skills such observation or inference	Using multiple process skills--manipulation, cognitive, procedural
Getting an answer	Using evidence and strategies for developing or revising an explanation
Science as exploration and experiment	Science as argument and explanation
Providing answers to questions about science content	Communicating science explanations
Individuals and groups of students analyzing and synthesizing data without defending a conclusions	Groups of students often analyzing and synthesizing data after defending conclusions
Doing few investigations in order to leave time to cover large amounts of content	Doing more investigations in order to develop understanding, ability, values of inquiry and knowledge of science content
Concluding inquiries with the result of the experiment	Applying the results of experiments to scientific arguments and explanations
Management of materials and equipment	Management of ideas and information
Private communication of student ideas and conclusions to teacher	Public communication of student ideas and work to classmates

From: D. Llewellyn. 2002. Inquire within: Implementing inquiry-based science standards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.pg. 10